In “Caught in the Act,” photographer Howard Schatz places actors in scenarios of his own creation. These are roles they’re unlikely to take in films.

Think Whoopi Goldberg as the wife of an evangelist caught in a sex scandal. There’s Terrence Howard as a gay man in a Christian conversion program. And Colin Firth as an over-the-hill boxer going for one last big payday.

For Schatz, whose work has been featured in Vanity Fair, GQ and the New York Times Magazine, the book served as a way to examine the intangible magic that actors can create.

“I’m really interested in imagination, in how people make things up,” he says. “A sculptor can take a block of stone and with a hammer and chisel form something that is wonderful. Similarly, how does an actor take print on a page and, using his voice and his body, make a human being that’s totally different from them? That interested me.”

The idea of photographing actors acting is not new for Schatz, who’s in his early 70s. In 2006, he published “In Character: Actors Acting,” which featured an early take on the concept. Schatz then did a similar project for Vanity Fair, which led to “Caught in the Act.”

It isn’t simply about photographs. Schatz spent up to an hour interviewing his subjects before the photo shoots. That served two purposes: Excerpts of the interviews are included in the book and they helped loosen up the actors and create trust.

“Some of the actors came to my studio knowing exactly what the project was about,” Schatz said. “Some of them came because their publicists said to go there for a three-hour shoot, and they had no idea what was about happen.”

Schatz say when they saw his studio — “a beautiful 5,000-square foot space in Soho with serious images on the wall” — it helped the performers feel at ease. So did the interviews, in which they discuss their craft and why they got into acting.

“They trusted me that it was about something serious,” says Schatz, who left behind a career as an ophthalmologist to focus on photography. “They knew it wasn’t about me making fun of them. In the interviews, I was not asking about drugs and divorces and arrests. It wasn’t gossip; it was smart and interesting.”

The rapport between Schatz and subjects was vital to making the book work. The actors had to trust the photographer when he began throwing scenarios at them. He created up to 25 characters for each actor; in the book, three to 12 characters per actor made the cut.

“With some of the actors, I would give them a part, then I might make a little suggestion or a twist,” Schatz says. “If you’re making soup and add some curry, it’s going to come out a little differently, so I would add an ingredient with an adjective to help vary the character a little bit.”

The results are intriguing. You can see the anger in Josh Charles’ eyes when he plays “coked-up kidnapper.” The sorrow in Jane Lynch’s face when she visits a friend in the hospital with cancer is oddly affecting. And the eager-to-please desperation of Brendan Fraser’s pickup basketball player is hilarious.

Fraser made for a particularly memorable session. After learning during his research that one of Fraser’s three sons is severely autistic, Schatz asked the actor to play his son. Fraser stood up and turned his back to the camera. He then lied on the floor, got up and wandered around the studio, looking confused. This went on for several minutes as Schatz snapped pictures.

“He was able to do anything, but this was just amazing,” Schatz recounts. “Afterward, I asked him how he was able to do that. He simply said, ‘I had to. That was your direction.’ ”

Schatz acknowledges that some actors responded better to direction than others, but he politely demurs from delivering raspberries.

“I’ll say this: The best actors did the best,” he says, with a chuckle. “The ones who are really great are the ones that you know are great. They’ve won the Emmys and the Oscars. They are the Michael Douglases and the Colin Firths, but everyone is really facile at it.”

Eighty-five actors are featured in the coffee-table book, and each was memorable for a different reason, Schatz says. Robin Wright confessed how shy she was. Pierce Brosnan acknowledged being insecure about his abilities. At times, Amy Poehler went off on tangents.

“I was a great audience and I would laugh, and Amy was funny and would make up jokes and quips which could get her off the character,” he says. “I would remind her about the character and she’d go ‘Oh yes, of course!’ She loves performing and loved making me laugh, so that became her main goal.”

In addition to the interviews and the acting exercises, the third part of the book consists of a portrait of each actor. These aren’t glossy publicity handouts; for instance, seemingly every crease in Ben Kingsley’s face is in plain sight.

“All actors have had their portraits taken and they all have a portrait face,” Schatz says. “I told them I was interested in veracity, not vanity. I wanted an image that really spoke about something within them.”

Even for the portraits, he essentially gave the actors a role: “Imagine you’re having a conversation with a friend. The conversation isn’t emotionally overwrought and it’s not intellectually challenging. You’re just listening.”

The result is “a face that’s enigmatic,” Schatz says. “It’s not performing for the camera, so that’s what we worked hard at doing.”

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